My opinion from searching various forum's that have dyno is to cut, smooth and fill the intake for best performance. Makes more power then the Hughes Air Gap without the rather large sticker price.

 

Well -- yes and no. It all boils down to cost. Changing the tooling & materials source would all more to the cost, PLUS the fact that the plenum issues didn't arise until -- ?? Probably well after Dodge had already been developing and readying the Hemi for production.

People would be shocked to know what kinds of known problems are allowed to go into production because the bean counters run statistical analysis of how much it will cost to fix the problem at the plant versus the warranty payout. The cheapest solution wins.

 

The plenum issue started with the first kegger intake and continued until the very last one produced and was a well known issue well before Chrysler built the first new age Hemi. Just the nature of the beast.

 

Better performance than the air gap? Using what criteria? A kegger will never be able to flow as much as the air gap at mid-upper rpm ranges.

 

Yes much better performance then a Air Gap. General consensus is a stock cam engine with bolt on, daily driver. When you pick performance engine parts they all need to work together within a specific RPM range.

Matching an Air Gap intake that is good to 6500 rpm+ to a stock engine with bolt ons that is good to 5000rpm max(SCT shift at 5200rpm) is a mismatch in part selection. Cutting, smoothing and filling the kegger allows the it to make more power up to 5000rpm without the dyno low end loss associated with the Air Gap.

The Air Gap's performance doesn't come close to that of a stock untouched kegger below 3500rpm and doesn't starts to make more power until after 4000rpm's. Cutting and smoothing allows the kegger to breath better passed 4000rpm to match that of the Air Gap and the filling speeds up low rpm velocity of the intake charge which equates to better low rpm power.

Large plenums are synonyms with the upper rpm range just as long skinny runners are to low rpm range.

Don';t know about anyone else but Iam rarely above 3500rpm let alone 4000rpm which is well within the sweet spot for a cut, smoothed and filled kegger not the Air Gap which is just starting to make its power.

 

So I take it you don't have an Airgap. I didn't notice any low end loss when I went from a keg (with a good plenum gasket) to the Airgap. I only noticed a significant power increase compared to the keg when I hit about 3500 rpm but again, not a bit of low end loss.

 

What about those of us '01 Ram's (not sure if other years, 2000 maybe?) that from my understanding from these forums the "kegger" mod, doesn't apply?

Guess we gotta get an AirGap or a Mopar M1, huh?

 

The kegger mod applies to all Magnum engines, whether it the V6 or the V8. The '92-'95 intakes on the EGR engines are a little bit more labor intensive due to the divider and EGR tube inside. The '96 to early '98 doesn't have the EGR tube but still has the divider that needs to be removed. Later '98-'04 has no divider and it's easier to modify.

 

Ok, that's what I was getting at...

If there's no divider to remove then I'm guessing that leaves only runner's to cut & smooth down, is doing the "kegger" mod even worth the hassle?

 

That's kind of like asking which brand oil or which brand oil filter is best. You're going to get a lot of differing opinions. Personally, I think it's well worth the hassle but that's just my opinion.